2 'peddlers' nabbed in separate Central Mindanao anti-shabu ops

KORONADAL CITY — Two shabu peddlers, one suspected of being a “killer-for-hire", an extortionist and cattle thief and the other among the top ten most wanted trafficker in Region 12, were arrested in separate entrapment operations in Maguindanao del Norte province and in nearby Tacurong City late Monday.

The first to fall in the two anti-narcotics stings is Joe Andy Hejosa Libres, entrapped by combined agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-12 and plainclothes policemen from units of the Police Regional Office-12 in Barangay New Isabela City in Tacurong City.

Aileen Lovitos, director of PDEA 12, said on Tuesday that Libres is included in the list of most wanted narcotics peddlers in Region 12.

Lovitos said Libres yielded peacefully when PDEA-12 agents and personnel of different units under the Police Regional Office 12 and the Tacurong City Police Station frisked and cuffed him after selling P20,000 worth of shabu to anti-narcotics operatives disguised as drug dependents.

Officials of PRO-12 and PDEA 12 agents told reporters that Libres was subject of an extensive prior surveillance for being one of the top ten most wanted shabu dealers in Region 12, operating in the towns and cities in the adjoining Sultan Kudarat and South Cotabato provinces.

Two hours later, Samad Eto Bukua, 36, was arrested by non-uniformed policemen after selling to them shabu in a clandestine tradeoff in Barangay Ibotigen in Sultan Kudarat town in Maguindanao del Norte. 

Besides shabu, policemen had also seized from Bukua a .30 caliber M1 Garand rifle.

In a report on Tuesday to Bangsamoro regional police director Brig. Gen. Allan Nobleza, Lt. Col. Esmael Madin, chief of the Sultan Kudarat municipal police, said Bukua voluntarily turned himself in after he sensed that he sold his illegal merchandise to policemen disguised as drug dependents.

Madin told reporters on Tuesday that the entrapment operation that resulted in the arrest of Bukua was assisted by barangay and municipal officials.

“We are now trying our best to validate the reports by confidential informants that the suspect is also involved in other heinous criminal activities. We just need time to uncover that,” Madin said.

Barangay folks had earlier told intelligence agents of the Sultan Kudarat Municipal Police Station and Maguindanao del Norte Provincial Police Office that there is mounting suspicion that Bukua could be a killer-for-hire and is also involved in extortion activities.

He was also tagged in a spate of cattle theft in recent months in farmlands at the border of Cotabato City and Sultan Kudarat.